Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Mangoes and Oranges and Loquats, Oh My!

Growing up on the East Coast, I was obsessed with growing my own food. One of the things I always dreamed about was having fruit trees in my yard - but alas, the closest we ever got was some juniper berries. My dad caught me eating flowers once, but that's another story.

Enter California! Dun dun dun!

When we first moved in to our house here in Los Angeles, one of the most fun things was figuring out what all the mystery trees around our yard were. I prayed for fruit.

Turns out the one cloaked in shadow on the right is...


Ta da! A mango tree!


Anyone who knows me knows that mangoes are my absolute favorite-est fruit and I would marry a mango if fruit-human relations unions were legal. My lifelong dream is to have a mango tree in my yard, and here it is. Dreams really do come true! *sob!*

Unfortunately, I didn't foresee the asshole squirrels...


Every morning, I would find one of my mangoes torn off the tree with one bite taken out and the rest discarded. I mean, one bite? ONE BITE?! Didn't your parents ever tell you there are starving kids in China, squirrel?

I still don't exactly know what kind of tree is on the left in that same pic up top, but fingers crossed it's a loquat tree:


My mother grew up eating these fruits in Taiwan. Here in LA, I've never seen anyone eating them, but I definitely see a lot of these trees dotting our neighbors' yards.

We also have a tree by our driveway. For the longest time, I thought it was a lemon tree, til I noticed the fruit were all staying green. Then I thought it was a lime tree, but come spring...


Oranges! Complete with fragrant and beautiful white orange blossoms!


Since there were so many oranges we couldn't keep up, and they were beginning to weigh the top branches down, I picked a little harvest a few weeks ago. A quick bath in our farmhouse sink...


And off they go to the neighbors.


Ahhhh...fruits. Is there anything they can't do?

Future plans: an avocado tree, a lemon tree, and a fig. But one thing at a time.